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toastykitten

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Feb. 24th, 2006 07:00 pm

tv land

toastykitten: (Default)
For most of the day I've had David Bowie on a loop in my head. Of course, there could be worse musicians to be stuck in my head, but I'd like a change already.

I got my MightyLeaf tea today at noon. My confirmation was sent at 11:30am yesterday. The Mountain Spring Jasmine is already my favorite; the smell is so soothing.

Project Runway - Reunion show - good lord, does this show love to milk the finale or what? It was a more entertaining than usual recap show, because it featured a coked-out Lupe (I don't believe it was just weed), more singing, Zulema's bullshit alter ego "Shitangy" and a confrontation between her and the model she ditched, and Santino. They should have just called it the Santino Show, since over half of it was clips of him singing, doing Tim Gunn impressions, and generally being a dick to everyone on the show. My favorite clip of him is the one where he says "I WANT TO EAT YOUR SOUL!" to Andrae because then I just pretend he's Zod trying to take over the world. Oh, and Daniel F.'s "I love you, Heidi" was the creepiest moment ever. Is he stalking her or something? He looked like he wanted to cry.

Inside the Actor's Studio - Dave Chappelle - This episode was two hours long and totally worth it. It's one of the best episodes ever. He talks a little bit about why he left for Africa, about how he got started, the usual, etc. I just love how smart he is, and how genuinely nice he seems to be. And yay for him saying "You may not be racist yourself, but you benefit from racism."

That's What I'm Talking About - In honor of Black History Month, TV Land made three episodes of this show, hosted by Wayne Brady, in which black people talk about the black experience. I think it was only rerun once or twice, so I only caught the second episode, called "Movers, Shakers, and Playmakers", about politicians, athletes, and comedians. Guests included Spike Lee, Reverend Al Sharpton, Wanda Sykes, John Ridley, and Greg Anthony. I couldn't really stand Spike Lee, even when I was agreeing with him. I liked what Sharpton and Sykes had to say, and I don't really remember who the other two are, except one of them went so far as to call Kobe Bryant a "hero" and I was like "wuh?" There were times when everyone got really passionate and talked over each other, and I thought Wayne Brady could have been more effective as a mediator, but overall it was a really interesting discussion.

I wish I could have caught the other episodes; but I guess they got replaced by more important things, like reruns of Cheers.
toastykitten: (Default)
I am awake. I think that the DayQuil and NyQuil pills were somehow switched in the boxes. I slept the whole day today, and I took nothing but DayQuil. I took NyQuil last night and couldn't sleep. I feel a lot better after having slept it off, but am slightly woozy.

The Longs Drugs now makes you go to the counter to buy Sudafed, which makes me wonder if my sleepy little suburb has a meth problem. I think the restrictions are ridiculous anyway, since you can just cap the amount of Sudafed you sell and it'd be a lot easier that way. I wonder if Costco has done the same thing?

I shopped in between periods of sleeping. I *heart* the Internet. I ordered some more tea at MightyLeaf, including Mountain Spring Jasmine, which I picked because of the description: Mountain Spring Jasmine is made of smooth China green tea leaves naturally scented by layers of Arabian jasmine buds. Hee! I've had it before in Vancouver; it's excellent and addictive.

Gotta go.
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I've been trying out these new "natural" and "organic" sodas/teas in order to curb my soda intake (because I want to keep my teeth). A lot of these are made with either cane sugar or just natural sugar, rather than corn syrup, which purportedly has a lot of bad qualities, and contributes to a lot of health problems. Corn syrup is everywhere you look, but I figure I can try cutting down on soda at least, since that's the one thing I drink a lot of.

These are the ones I tried; most of these are not going to be as sweet as soda, but they will satisfy the craving for flavor if you're like me and don't really like to drink water. You're out of luck if you don't like tea, though:

Honestea: I saw this recommended on some blog some time ago. I don't remember which one. It's actually the first place where I read about how much better drinking non-corn-syrup beverages are. When I first tried this, I didn't really like it. That was true of most of the beverages I tried. I didn't like the bitterness, but then again, it's tea. Do not have this one lukewarm, or the bitterness will overwhelm the actual sweetness of the tea. Over time, it grew on me, although the first sip always makes me wish I hadn't bought it. The second sip is much better.

Other points in its favor: According to their website, "We hope that by introducing new teas and exciting new tastes under the Honest Tea name, we can help to create greater economic opportunity in communities that are seeking to become more self-sufficient. We try also to present our teas in a culturally authentic context, using our labels to illustrate the tea's origin or story—a Crow Native American Chief, a Chinese rubbing from the Tang Dynasty, an oil painting from Guatemala or a hand-drawn sketch from Haarlem South Africa." They also have a bunch of partnerships with nonprofits, and there's a page about social responsibility. (Unfortunately their site still uses frames, so I can't link to any of those directly.) And one of their bottles features Opus the Penguin, because Berkeley Breathed liked it so much. That was the real reason I picked it up in the first place, because Bloom County is still one of my favorite comic strips.

Snapple makes a drink that's made with "natural sugar". I bought a few of these on the way home from work. They cost the same as a regular Snapple. It's sweeter than Honestea, but a lot less sweet than a regular Snapple. It's decent, but not one of my favorites.

Jones Soda recently released a line of organic teas, sweetened with natural cane sugar. It is my favorite of the bunch. I love the original sodas as well (but you couldn't pay me enough to try their Holiday Pack), but the only thing against them is that they're fairly expensive to be buying everyday. By the way, the White Tea Cherry was so bitter I almost spit it out. The rest seemed to be a lot sweeter, but as with the other brands, it takes a while to get acclimated to to the taste. Canadian sodas are awesome.

I just tried Steap Green Tea Soda yesterday. It's pretty good, and tastes the most like actual soda, because it's been lightly carbonated.

I'm hoping Costco will start carrying these sodas soon (maybe they already do), because buying them one by one is getting pretty expensive.

I need to start cleaning up. I'm cooking up a storm today.
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I have a dentist appointment in about an hour. I hope I don't have any cavities.

Things have been really quiet for me lately. I've been feeling really restless, though, and I feel like I ought to be doing something useful, but I have no idea what. Maybe I should start drawing again. I can't wait until my boss gets back from maternity leave; as soon as she does I am taking two weeks off to go somewhere.

I've read a lot in the past couple of weeks, mostly because I finally started using my library card. Books I've read:

Parable of the Talents, Octavia Butler - This book freaked me out. This is the sequel to Parable of the Sower, and it's mainly about the heroine of the first - Lauren Olamina, through the eyes of the resentful daughter she's been separated from for most of her life. Lauren Olamina, in the first novel, starts a new religion called Earthseed, and this second novel is a continuation of that journey. It's classic Butler - stark prose, powerful ideas, and a protagonist who is hellbent on survival.

Butler also has a new novel out, called Fledgling. I can't wait to read it.

Tender at the Bone, Ruth Reichl - I was actually trying to see if I could find her new book, Garlic and Sapphires, which were about her years in disguise as a critic for the New York Times. This one is a memoir of earlier years, where food helped her cope with everything, from heartbreak to her manic-depressive mother. I think I'd actually read some of the chapters about her mom before, because they seemed very familiar to me. This was a very touching book, but I wouldn't call it great or anything. Reichl writes well, but has a tendency to resort to cliches when she's writing about actual food. I guess it's hard to capture the kind of ecstasy you feel when you're faced with truly sublime food, but maybe I'm just jealous, because she speaks French fluently and had an awesome life. My favorite chapters were the ones about her life during the seventies, in which the politics of her and her friends changed with the economic need, from recycling to dumpster-diving, and she argued to her mother that "ambition was what was wrong with America".

Miss Manners' Basic Guide to Eating, Judith Martin - I am a total sucker for advice columns. This tiny little volume made me feel sooo guilty, but I was also confused by some of the questions she got - like, "My kids are picky eaters and refuse to eat the food I cook for them and always beg for sandwiches. What should I do?" Oy.

The Book of Tea, Kakuzo Okakura - This book is sort of a primer on Japanese aesthetics. Anyway, it's a little bit snarky, surprising given that this was written over fifty years ago, and very elegant, even if I'm pretty doubtful about the accuracy of the information. He talks a lot about the aesthetic of imperfection, of leaving things unfinished so that the imagination can complete them. There's also stuff about Taoism, tea rituals, etc.

Other good things:

I received a t-shirt and print from Yan. I think the shirt fits fine, and I will probably frame the print and put it on my wall somewhere. Right now the walls are blank, and I'm thinking of just buying some canvas to paint on it, or something. Except I know nothing about how to paint stuff, so I might start small.

Demon Days, Gorillaz - This second album is delicious. I'm terrible at describing music, but this mostly instrumental, electronica, hip-hop-ish mash made me really happy and bouncy at my work desk. I'm glad I got it.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, soundtrack - The movie was just totally weird. It made no sense to me and I had no idea what the point was and Bill Murray was the same character he always is. But I thought the Portuguese covers of David Bowie were really beautiful, so I went out and bought this. It's lovely.
Mar. 17th, 2005 06:36 pm

Intro post

toastykitten: (Default)
Yay, a Livejournal.

I am still sick.

I finally got my teapot back from MightyLeaf. Now, MightyLeaf makes the best teas in the world, but their service is slow as hell. I sent the defective teapot back to them in January. And then I forget about it, until I realize that I have all these awesome loose-leaf teas that I can't just brew in my cup. So I called them up yesterday. "Oh, we JUST processed that order."

My throat hurts.

This weekend will be devoted to teas.
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